Believe it or not, it is not your outstanding professional track record or your exceptional academic pedigree that make you standout in an interview. Those are the things that get you the interview. Once you walk in the room and sit down in front of the interviewer, it is a whole new ball game. If you want to Standout in Your Interview, you need to focus on the following steps to differentiate yourself from your peers.

A good place to start in your interview preparation process is to be prepared enough to answer the questions below. Although these questions may vary from industry to industry, there are questions that will come up in every interview. Here are the 8 most commonly asked questions and some tips on how to answer them:

Tell me about a time when you broke the rules to get something accomplished? How would you answer this question? Are they probing to see if you're a potential troublemaker who will violate rules in the employee handbook? At first glance, it feels like the damned if you do, damned if you don't "Have you stopped beating your wife?" question, but the interviewer is really interested in seeing if you know how to work through obstacles to get stuff done. Another popular variation is Tell me about an obstacle you faced and how you overcame it.